Blog Comments & Posts

I orignally wrote this blog post back a little while ago, but between the server crashes and all that I think it got lost in translation so.... This was my Saturday night at about 3-4am...
*insert Twilight Zone music here*
As I write this blog I am listening to Groove Armada's Superstylin, I just finished watching the video from Google I/O and quite frankly, Google Wave is Superstylin!
Do the Wave!

Social media sites as of late seem to be a staple of search engine optimization and reputation management, but will this continue to hold true in years to come? It currently seems that one of the easiest ways to get a company/individual to the top of Google is by using social media sites. With Google's current algorithm it only makes sense to register with the popular social media sites out there because they fit the algorithm perfectly.

I have recently gotten into SEO/SEM reputation management work, and I encountered Rip Off Report on a professional level. Wondering why it was so hard to get Rip Off Report away from the top of Google, I started reading up all the many articles on Google and Rip Off Report. The site clearly breaks many of Google's guidelines, yet it continues to rank at the top of Google. Rip off Report's legitimacy is that of a mobster, yet Google continues to reward them with a rather high rank.

Algorithm shift anyone? It's been a while it seems like since we've had a major shift, times are changing and maybe you shouldn't be so worried about your competitor's spammy links but what else they're doing ;)

When it comes to "over-optimization" the best rule is if it's not broken, why fix it.

If his website was ranking well and doing well, then why bother doing changes.

However as Pete said if the website has terrible urls, and the whole website is a mess, then an overhaul would be fitting. If it's ranking well, getting solid traffic, then why bother, just keep adding content and keeping the site maintenance up and you're fine.

I like how people just make the claim that teenagers don't like Twitter without really looking into the situation.

1st off since when did the 12-17 year old range become a power house in social networking/media sites? I'd say the power house is 18 - 20's for social networking sites. Facebook used to be college students only and that's how it became big, what other site had college students only being it's whole audience? Many of us Twitter users use smart phones to post on to Twitter. Getting text message updates is annoying, so using a mobile app and/or the web is the best way to go. Not very many kids in the 12-17yr old range have smart phones to use Twitter to it's full capacity.

2nd off wow you can make a Twitter account private just like you can a Facebook account. With Facebook or Myspace you have typically have more incriminating photos, more exposure of personal life, etc.

I love it, planning on making some moves within the next few years and this is definitely something I needed to see. Funny how you brought up Twitter though... it's just like an employee getting fired for using social media/social networking. Just another example of how not to shoot yourself in the foot.

There are no cures or vaccainations for the H1N1 flu, keep that in mind. Flu's in themselves aren't exactly curable, that is why every year you have to get a flu shot, and sometimes it doesn't work.

However knowledge on how to protect yourself, and knowledge of the flu can be spread. Which it was, when it first was announced as a potentially dangerous strain of flu, it was all over the Twitter as a common trend, information regarding it spread like a wild fire.

You can't stop a flu, but you can help prevent cases, which I am sure it did

Ok 1st off, everyone says Google is falling behind on real time search, guess what, they aren't really. Google just needs to make it more well known that under more options, there is a search for recent results. This came up on the Michael Jackson blog post that Danny did, I'll say it once and I'll say it again, if you use Google's recent search you get searches that could have happened seconds from your search. During Michael Jackson's death I was getting new and different articles by the minute of what various news outlets were saying on the matter. Google isn't falling behind, they just have options that aren't being publicized.

2nd off, Twitter helps spread a lot of solid information, in California we had an amber alert and the I-5 came up as a common trend because people kept re-tweeting an amber alert on the I-5 be on the look out, etc. If Twitter does in fact win the Nobel Piece Prize it was nominated for, then Twitter will see a large increase of users I am sure.

3rd off, If a program like this would become known and wide spread, then their will be some major false alarms. I know Danny said the post their would be some false alarms, their will be some "attacks" if you will that may look completely real. 4chan for example, a lot of them are in different places, a lot of them could use proxies, I am pretty sure if a flu program such as this that 4chan would make some major false information go around. However, the overall good a program like this can do, outweighs the fact that every now and then some people will try to alter it. Just know the good comes with the bad

Yeah what V7N boards did when they were giving away tickets to go to a SEM type convention they said Re-Tweet this once a day for a chance to win, it kept us regularly tweeting it, but not over doing it or anything.

And Yes I agree, coming up with something planned, and people know about and get them excited over it will probably have huge success. Then once you make a name for yourself, you can do random, spontaneous type give aways that will give instant satisfaction.

A lot of movies use twitter accounts to give away tickets, posters, etc. Inglorious Basterds did some cool give aways as well as a lot of other people at Comic-Con like the 1st 100 people to show up to the booth right now get a t-shirt type thing, and it worked really well.

Also @LiveNation, they are a music promotion team, they throw concerts, every wednesday they give deals, and they often have give aways, everything from CD's, tickets, to limited edition posters. You have to be giving away something people want, or giving discounts, etc. If you give away the same product or same type of give-a-away people will get bored, however Live Nation because it's always new concerts, new items, etc. Are always having good amounts of people re-tweeting them or using them in hash tags or @ replying them.

In order to be re-tweeted, you must have follows, in order to have followers you must be INTERESTING!

In some way, shape or form you must give someone a reason to follow you. 2 key twitter accounts I'll talk about is @darthvader and Kenny Powers.

They have a huge following cause they are funny/intersting. We all know darth vader, and the tweets made on the account are quite humerus, on the 4th of July Darth Vader made a tweet stating how "he doesn't know how he feels about a bunch of rebels defeating an empire." Kenny Powers is a twitter acct. made for promotional type use of the show Eastbound and Down, in similar fashion to the show, Kenny Powers says some pretty lewd and hilarious things though. These 2 accounts get constant re-tweets and all always in part of a conversation.

Looking at something else is that is VERY interesting is follow Friday, Kenny Powers told people to follow David Marsh, he said that because of Kenny Powers alone saying to follow him for follow Friday he got hundreds of new people following him.

Twitter can def. be a powerful force to traffic driving, branding, etc. Also it's an easy way to get on the SERP's.

You don't know twitter much do you? The best case study of this is Moonfruit, they were giving away apple laptops if you would make a tweet with the hash tag #moonfruit, they were dominating the trending topics so bad Twitter blocked them from the trending topics. I forgot the exact number but because of this Twitter promotion they got about 300-500% increase in traffic to the site and it was VERY successful. Tweet-A-Prize does stuff like this as well. Also I won a tickets to go to one of the SEO convention things from V7N boards.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of S-E-O. It is trampling out the spam where the search engines go;
It hath loosed the fateful lightning of it's terrible swift robots.txt;
It's truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! SEO's truth is marching on.

SEO has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
It is sifting out the spammers of men before the search engine's judgement seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer SEO! be jubilant, my tweets;
Our SEO is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our SEO is marching on.

In the beauty of the search engines SEO was born across the web,
With a glory in it's work that pays you and me:
As SEO was born to make websites visible, let us live to make our clients seen;
While SEO is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While SEO is marching on.

Yeah I really hope he tackles SEO pricing, and methodology of pricing. Maybe talking a bit of sales pitches, or how to make one get a consulting contract might be good. Not everyone in SEO has a solid sales type background and that may be something def. worth mentioning.

BTW, if you type "seo secrets dover" in Amazon, it asks if you meant "sex secrets cover". I almost ordered some unrated Spanish soft porn instead of your book.

I personally HOPE that Danny talks about the business side of consulting though. Such as what are the best contract options for consulting, how to scale what one should charge as a consultant should, etc. Looking at some solid business aspects of consulting would help me A LOT, but I don't think I am the only one who could get some aid from that.

Think of all the posts SEOmoz makes such as the white board Fridays, etc. They give away TONS of solid, valuable information for free. Another example is Google offers almost all of its services for free.

If you can afford to give away free information and help, it allows clients to trust you, and then it allows for a growth in business.

Or he could talk about previous "fashions and fads" a bit of the current ones and where it could all be headed.

History tends to repeat itself, and in order to know the future, we need to know the past. I think that is the same for SEO we have to understand why Google and search companies have created the guidelines they have, etc.

I am not sure on this mentality. If a client told me that, I'd simply say I used a diagnostic type tool that I have access to that can do a quick check of your website. You explain to them that you pay for expensive tools and that checking a website and someone elses work is a lot different from doing work.

When you take a car into the mechanic and he runs a diagnostic test it's less than a hundred but the work that might need to be done could easily be in the thousands.

I think when looking at a website it's important to pay attention to all factors. Granite on the whiteboard friday video a few weeks back they said that H1 headers do not have as big of an impact I think it's still important to see what sites are using them and which ones are not.

I think this is a 2 way street though, would Roland have a conference call with a representative of each company or individual on the 51 list, or have a meeting in person and pull off what he did. No, so why should it be ok for that to happen on the email?

I have seen bidding wars first hand, my step-dad is a project manager for a construction company, and my uncle owns his own construction company.

You do not tell everyone who you are pitting them against, esp. not via email. Poor practice unless you are a major name as I have said already, if you are a major name in the world it creates competition, if you are a nobody you just tend to step on peoples toes.

SEO is a young, new industry it will take time to get rid of nay-sayers. I mean some people don't believe in science but you don't see the science communities up in arms. Another major problem of why I believe have this misconception is because of fraudulent SEO companies, or black hat companies. They work for a while and then soon fail, which puts a bad taste in peoples mouth when they think of SEO.

It's really not a pointless activity, this ties into Rand's Future of SEO blog post. The discussions that are happening on this blog post are a direct life line of the future of SEO. How are we, as a community, going to handle situations, etc.

Really, so then every corporate blunder can put as an honest mistake and needs no attention to it? United Airlines breaking guitars just another honest mistake. Enron cheating people out of there money just another honest mistake. In this situation you are dealing with a 6 figure contract, a potentially booming website, and an industry that greats stronger every day, and you want to call this an honest mistake. I think the SEO community gave him a honest answer(s) to the situation. Lisa if you were trying to acquire more clients are you going to send a mass email with it showing the CC of everyone you sent it to saying " Our company has looked into your company's website and we see a great potential for growth and traffic increase...." You just don't do it

Potential clients shouldn't be dumb asses themselves, that's all I gotta say on that. I have worked in-house and client based and none of my clients have ever done anything like this, and I would call them out on it if they did. Dana if you lost your job or all your clients are you just going to forward your resume and CC it out to everyone you want to apply to showing everyone else where you applied at?

On the same argument Roland could have done his research and learn how to effectively contact companies and consultants. In the film industry when you give a pitch for a movie are they going to do that, break down everything you could of done and why they do not want to produce your film, no they simply will laugh, bad mouth your terrible elevator pitch in front of your face, and send you packing. I quote the movie Boiler Room, "Be Relentless"

You people need to work in a ruthless industry such as collections or tele-sales jobs and grow a sack.

To be completely honest, I think this was smart of some of the better known, top SEO companies/consultants in the industry. A blog post like this sends a message to potential SEO clients, that message is, Be serious and ready to do business.

Industries need to grow a back bone and whether you guys disagree or not, this makes potential clients and those looking into SEO not want to make mistakes like this. Posts like this will help to open the eyes those interested in SEO and make them research companies, methods, and individuals. Which ties into other posts we have had on SEOmoz/YOUmoz.

If you were going to do a construction project of your house are you just gonna grab 50+ companies who do construction and send them a generic email, HELL NO! I personally am going to find the companies that specialize in what I need done and then I am going to get quotes and deal with them on an individual basis.

I can't believe you guys are defending a jack ass who borderline made a mockery of SEO.

If I acted like a total jack ass to major players in a tight nit industry I'd expect to get something like this. Just because you are emailing and taking part of an online forum does not mean you can do whatever you want/say whatever you want, or at least w/o reprecussions

The proper way to look at this is, think of meeting in person. Are you really going to invite 51 company representatives and tell them what he said, face to face of 51 company reps?

Business meetings and contacts should be dealt on an individual basis, he screwed up, TWICE and should have to deal with the consequences.

If I was to give an elevator pitch to 50+ movie studios in the same room at the same time, they would probably slap me in my face and walk out the door, and never talk to me ever again if I contacted the studio. Unless you are some MAJOR NAME or MAJOR COMPANY and you are creating a bidding war, you do not handle business in this nature.

Are you going to call 50+ clients at a time and tell them about a new change in SEO? No you won't, you contact clients on an individual basis. Plain and simple, you guys can defend this retard all you want, but look into the real world of business and things like this happen all the time.

I think the key to this problem is getting some main stream exposure, some real news group to cover something of the sort, an expose on fraudulent and real SEO work.

Things like this take time, having just started to get into SEO about 4 months ago (I was hired as a blogger and now I do SEO/Online Reputation Management/SEO Copywriting and Blogging) just shows anyone can pick this work up. Same as website development, if you can learn it and like it, you can get a job doing it.

SEO is a rather new industry and in time the snake oil and the true facts will sort themselves out, it's pretty much a waiting game IMO.

Bringing up Social Media and Using Metrics, I think the future is actually mashing the 2 together.

I think we haven't seen much of this at this point because Google doesn't want to get buddy buddy with Twitter or Facebook, etc. I think when Google Wave comes, we will see more mixture of both of these. Something is constantly being "waved" or a link is being "waved" like crazy I think then we will see more results on Google.

Not front page of Google but more likely on recent search option. I think another big turn that will happen in SEO is Google is going to find a way to get users to use the More Options on their search results. Such as recent search or monthly searches, and more use from the Wonder Wheel.

This brings in a new dynamic to SEO, you may not have front page ranking for a keyword, term etc. but what if you had a front page listing under forums, recent search and the monthly search. Rand brought up vertical SEO, well what about Vertical SEO results in Google alone.

Rand a while back had the white board friday of Dude your links kinda suck, but what if your forum post with that kinda sucky link, gives the site a tiny bit of juice but a front page spot on the forum SERP, kinda changes the dynamics to things and really makes things a lot more competitive.

Most people do not use the more search options on Google yet, but if you get ahead of the game right now, you can take up some potentially easy front page SERP's that no one is competing for yet.

I was gonna write a YOUmoz post regarding this but I figure I'll just let it out here.

I think though times have and are changing, this just doesn't hold up anymore.

I know of a few companies who got into PPC campaigns and it's so competitive they are spending $4-10 on clicks and showing 0 return.

Just like Rand said PPC is saturated like crazy, so you either barely spend any on PPC and get a few clicks w/ 0 return or spend a fortune and barely get a return.

SEO (as we talked about in a YouMoz post) is still not being seen as a force and people are still skeptical about it. Everyday however this misconception is slowly being destroyed, and people are realizing what it really can do.

Social media is very new to most companies so they aren't doing much with it, either cause they do not know how to get into it, or they are too scared, etc. If Twitter does get a nobel piece prize, and Facebook continues to bring in millions however, we are going to see a massive increase in social media advertising.

I really disagree on this, I think most companies do not have people who can properly show ROI on social media.

Also I believe they are half assing social media campaigns, if you half ass an SEO campaign or half ass PPC campaign then it won't be successful. I think that is the current situation with social media, many companies are just "putting there hands in there" and only a few companies such as Dell have gone skinny dipping at midnight in the social media pool.

However not all industries can make social media successful, unlike PPC and SEO. Any industry can do well with PPC and SEO with the proper help and tools, some industries just won't be able to do anything in social media.

I thought this conversation with an I.T. friend of mine, I brought up how I am starting off my consulting work, things are really slow but if I offer cheap services and get myself out there more I should be fine.

His response was like, why offer cheap services? Offer industry standards or a bit higher, if you offer too low, it gives a bad image.

I had an offer to work on a porn site, they wanted me to send my resume, contact info, etc. just as I was about to do it, I opt'ed not to. I have no personal problem working for a porn site, especially because their is a lot of money in porn, you could def. charge a porn company a much higher monthly retainer, but for some reason I just couldn't apply, haha.

In my honest opinion, it's a smart move. I mean even Rand last whiteboard Friday mentioned tech porn or like product porn, in regards to ecommerce sites (sorry don't know the exact quote, and I'm too lazy to go back and watch the white board friday.) When it comes to a website such as TechCrunch who has made and continues to make questionable moves for website gain, most recent would be to releasing of confidential Twitter documents that an anonymous hacker gave them... TechCrunch is in it for the money, fame, and gain, and they seem to be doing pretty well at that.

---edit----

To be completely honest, the only reason I use Bing right now is cause of it's video search. It is actually pretty useful if you want are trying to find certain videos if you get what I mean ;)

Yeah I have never really liked firefox, never liked the feel of it, and it's a major resource hog, also has crashed on me countless times... To this day Chrome has never crashed *knocks on wood, crosses fingers, etc.*

Everybody should just make plug-ins for Chrome and make me the happiest person ever. =)

Andy has now made profile pages, for a select 10 companies who payed for the membership. There is still a lot of work, but he seems to be one of the only people uniting businesses with vendors.

And of course the top 10 won't agree exactly, they will agree with similar ideas, but not everything. I bet for instance, Andy Beal and Rand have similar things in mind, but they attack them differently. It's just like martial arts really, similar moves, similar ideas but a complete different approach.

That is fun part of S.E.O. it's all personal and it's individual.

As for a regulating body, someone is gonna have to step up and try to make something work, it's probably going to have to be one of the big names too, or at least have a big name backing them up.

But the only one who seems to be headed into that direction would be SEM vendor.

Expanding on what Lucy said, typically with niche blogs, you have a community. Odds are if it's that good of a niche blog, people reading it at least one or two people have a better or well known blog and they may link to you. Just like how other members of the S.E.O. community come onto SEOmoz and visa versa it's the same situation of most niche blogs.

In my experience when one is dealing with niche blogs you're building a really reliable link building strategy and if you can get some of the reliable names in that niche to link you, a lot of the other newbies, or lesser known people in the niche will link to you as well.

No offense but this is seems really immature and outdated. Maybe if this was like when Twitter first started this would be amusing but this seems to lack anything of use. I have constant twitter conversations and retweet battles on twitter and this just does not amuse me in any way shape or form. I love the movie and all, but this just seems lacking.

They realized the need for real time search with Twitter. They already countered it with their added search options back in May, everyone/anyone using Google can do a recent search and get real time results.

I highly do not agree that Google has themselves spread to thin. They have a rather larger staff in multiple locations. Sydney is spearheading Wave, they have a development team for the Android, they have teams for search engine help/aid/development, they have various teams for Google Maps, etc.

I think Google's success right now is the fact they are handling so many projects and they seem to be nailing every single one.

But then IMO Google isn't lacking real time search at all. It would be like using a bag that is 4x too big for your needs vs. a bag that perfectly fits your needs. Instead of saying Google is lacking real time search, I think a better approach that Google needs to find a way to make the new search options such as recent search/wonder wheel, etc. more commonly known.

Did you do a recent search of Michael Jackson as it was going on? I was searching on the show options -> recent search and I was getting constant new news feeds as they were posted. It seems this study was just using Google's basic search...

I think with Google unlike many other companies because this is open source, Google is just starting it off, any person with knowledge of code writing/developing could take this off much more than Google can.

With open source there is always hope for someone else to make something huge, however odds are if that happens, they will just get a really nice job at Google.

Exactly as James Svoboda said, at the conference they showed how they have the ability to turn it off or on. I think most people are going to have this off, I can't think of one person who will want this on.

It's best just to watch the video, why take someone else's word on what it can do instead of just watching it yourself? Either way it's a new open source app that Google is developing. On the left side you have all your friends/contacts, then in the next column the middle column it's various Waves that are going on. On the far left column it's a wave you are in. They are developing the Wave to be the next form of Email/IM, and at the same time they are developing a new social networking "app."

You can start a Wave with whoever you want, then as you are typing to each other you can reply to certain paragraphs individually or a large reply. You can add more people to a Wave and the new people can do a "rewind" of the Wave, to see the initial conversation of the Wave.

You can drag and drop pictures into the Wave, and as you drag and drop them, other people in the Wave can write comments to the pictures ( I believe or it is something to that effect I watched the video a few weeks ago so that may not be a 100% accurate but they do have something to that effect.) You also can have a direct link to a blog from your Wave so as you are posting pictures or writing on the Wave it can appear on the blog.

Not only does it have a spell check it has a grammar check as well. So if you say "I have bean there" it will automatically change that to "I have been there." It also came with a translator that seemed pretty accurate. You can also add various widgets, one they showed at I/O was a Twitter widget. So as you Wave you can direct that Wave straight to Twitter. Wave also has a real time search option just like Twitter so you can see what is being Waved.

They also have games for Wave, they played chess at the I/O conference. I am probably missing some things but here is a gist of what Wave can do, now instead of taking my word for it why not just go watch the conference footage!

--edit--

Also it was pretty interesting, at the conference while this whole thing was going on when they went to the Twitter widget for Wave and they searched "Google Wave" there had already been a rather large amount of tweets being made about it.

Currently Wave is only for Google developers and those that were at I/O. So it's a developer's closed beta right now. Because it is open source they want multiple diff. people to be hosting Wave.

Yeah except this fight isn't really all about hard work/knowledge. A lot of it is funds and time. Smaller firms typically do not have time or money. Typically time and money only goes to big companies who are major spenders.

Ok take this opinion from a 20 (almost 21, my b-day is monday woo!) Junior in college. Twitter is just gaining popularity. The more mobile phones, and the more mobile phone apps that are being made the more people use Twitter. I had never heard of Twitter until January when I got my G1.

A lot of my friends who are anywhere from freshmen in college to graduated from college are just getting into twitter. Twitter helps me find out about news in the Mixed Martial Arts world, it helps me find where the Kogi Taco Truck is going to be at, it helps me stay informed and talk with my friends.

I bet your daughter's circle of friends aren't really using Twitter. It's not fun or useful if your friends aren't using it. At least for our age group.

I think the biggest thing to look at for the future of Google is Wave. I wrote an entry with my thoughts on Wave ( awaiting approval maybe if I say I love you Rebecca it will get put up in UGC faster.) Anyways Google already has an OS. Shout out to my wonderful G1! The thing I do enjoy about it is, when I do a hard reset on my phone Google servers have my contact information, etc. backed up. So a cold boot from a factory reset it just sync's up with the Google servers and I am set. So what you are talking about is already in play, just on a much smaller scale. I see Google being better than Microsoft/Apple because they almost always use Open Source. Using Open Source is a 2 fold bonus; 1st less work, 2nd better results for the user. It is less work on Google if they use open source because then they can go to I/O for instance and give developers beta, etc. and let them help in the creation process. Instead of keeping everything in-house like microsoft/macintosh, you spend less money on labor, etc. Open source is better results for the user because a larger crowd of people can make apps for it. Better system tools, better programs, the possibilities are much more wide and broad than your typical O.S. You make it much more customizable for the user.

Google since day 1 has been about the user. Everything they seem to do is about the user, that is the key reason I believe Microsoft/Macs have fallen off. Is it really about the user or just making money?

So basically a company emailed you to start a link exchange. This is non paid but Google would have no idea it is a link exchange unless they look at the companies involved and using some high level thinking they will determine if it was paid or not paid...

Now if this idea of mass emailing for "link juice" spreads, Google will have 2 options, continue the course where links going to a page matter, or make "link juice" less efficient and less apart of the algorithm.

This could be an interesting turn for email marketing, the algorithm, and current S.E.O. techniques...

Yeah I talked about that earlier in a comment, Google not only analyzes the search, it analyzes things around your search, such as what you have already shown interest in, and what you are probably going to show interest in. We see this in a very simplified form with the Google Wonder Wheel, and we have seen Google's ability to comprehend sentences, words, and such with Wave.

With the Google Adwords keyword searching tool it's pretty amazing the stuff they come up with, things a "think tank" marketing group may not even come up with, and not nearly as fast as the few seconds Google does. I guess with the many years Google has been running they have constantly been saving searches, and seeing trends. Google may just very well know what the average user is going to search before they even search it.

Thus searching "cheap books" send them directly to half.com, because they already know where they will want to end up at. It's almost like a fortune teller, you go to them saying where should I shop for cheap books I am thinking about cheapbooks.com and they return the answer Half.com or Amazon.com, when cheap books may have no direct relation.

lol Matt Cutts and everyone from Google say they do not give anything to branding, but without even going there, I'd say it is because Half.com has more traffic, has more trust/authority that is why it comes up. If you think logically when you search cheap books Half.com should be there.

I think this shows keywords aren't everything, and when you attack your niche or your clients niche just remember, you do not need to focus on keywords. Think logically, a lot of people in S.E.O. just follow almost set "rules" such as keywords, between this example, the no follows, etc. start thinking about why people are searching and what they want to see.

People who are searching for cheap books they would want to see half.com, not just sites with keywords for cheap books.

I recently started an adwords campaign for a client and I never realized how much Google pays attention to synonyms. A term like commercial debt, or commercial collection brought up 100+ keywords/synonyms.

So it's pretty obvious why Half is number 1, because it's such a well trusted site, heavily trafficked, and I am sure thousands of people link to half all the time. (esp. us broke college students) It may not have the term cheap, but we all know that half.com is one of the cheapest places to buy books. Yeah kinda scary to think A.I. is getting that smart but Google def. has their algorithm to think like a normal searcher would. I think with Wave we also see the kind of A.I. Google is really working with, and it's pretty intelligent.

RIP OFF REPORT GAINED ANOTHER JUMP IN THE SERP'S AGAINST ONE OF MY CLIENTS! >_<

GRRRR

I am so mad they break all these rules and now instead of 2 results on page 1 of Google I am looking at 3... -_-' So instead of using no follows, let's just let everything be followed including paid advertising.

Lol yeah IP redirect ok that is one thing, but putting up a site that leads to a broken page isn't something I'd ever suggest, cause you never know who will come across that.

As break said why not focus on getting better? Why spend all that time to "fool" your competition instead of just becoming better than your competition, find ways to out rank them, or gain more traffic, and/or new traffic.

I mean competition is healthy, on all levels of business, it can make you look better than the rest or it can make you work harder than the best.

I mean just us being on SEOmoz, you are interacting with "competitors" we all at any given time could be competition for the same job, etc. yet we aren't on here intentionally sabotaging each other, we all interact and help each other out.

Lol this is like an article saying that Black Hat/Grey Hat SEO methods are good and you should be using them to get ahead of your competitors.